Oxygen

Questions about spirituality and the afterlife echo throughout “Oxygen.” In the first stanza, Oliver establishes an undercurrent of mortality. She immediately draws attention to the body’s fragility. Every part of the human body needs air to function. In the second line, she alludes to death’s inevitability. The soul only needs oxygen “while it calls the earth its home” (Line 2). However, the speaker does not explain where the soul goes.

Air surrounds everyone, but no one can physically grasp or see it. Its intangibility allows Oliver to blur the lines between life and death. The air gives humanity life, yet it remains uncontrollable. Humans also cannot control the inevitability of death. Additionally, the speaker knows the soul exists but does not know where it goes afterward. The speaker’s lover also appears in the poem, but upstairs and out of the speaker’s sight. The speaker knows their lover lives by hearing their breathing. The contrast between sound and lack of sight places the lover in a liminal space, alive but also dying.

The speaker worries about how they will live without their lover. Their lives are “so close” (Line 14) they are inseparable. However, that inseparability offers bittersweet hope.